


The Salvage of Eaten Things

by icarus_chained



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angels, Dark Fantasy, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Gothic, Lovecraftian Monster(s), Monster Hunters, Original Fiction, Rescue, Saints, Survivor Guilt, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-03 22:17:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16334276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: The thing on the mountain had eaten him. Eaten everything. Marcus couldn't run anymore. A vampire, eventhisvampire, was nothing to be feared now. But perhaps this vampire didn't mean to be.





	The Salvage of Eaten Things

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of dark fantasy for the month of October.

Marcus breathed raggedly, hunching forward and clenching one hand at his chest. The other was clutched to his left thigh, to the slow, dark stain spreading to the floor beneath it. His breath misted the air in front of him in a silvery cloud, bright with the moonlight from the southern windows. The flat wood of the pew pressed cool and solid against his back. It was no comfort. None whatsoever.

"Peace," called a voice from the chapel floor. Softly, a low, chiding note that carried to the gallery easily. Marcus hunched further. The creature below him continued without care or qualm. "I will not harm you, hunter. Not tonight. Peace. Why not come down and tend your wounds?"

That startled a laugh out of him. In spite of himself, almost. It was a thin noise, a rough thing hissed out from between his teeth, but it was a laugh nonetheless. Such humour! Why of course, your Lordship! Come down and tend my wounds _indeed_. He bit back the noise with a groan, and dug his fingers harder into the tear in his leg. Blood in the air, and such a pale, considerate friend to help him clean it.

It wasn't fair. It really, really wasn't. Tonight of all nights. The world was ended, the night torn open and madness tumbling from the hole, and the one chapel he managed to stumble across had a _vampire_ in it.

And not just any vampire, no. Oh no. Nothing less than the Black bloody King himself for Marcus Yelantes. The lord of shadows, the last of the dawn crusaders, the black king of Anassis. Lord Melchim bloody Anastaer himself. Because why on earth not, hmm? Where else would a creature like that be, except in some run-down bloody chapel on a mountainside overlooking the end of the world?

There was a sound outside. He could hear it still. The vampire probably could as well. That horrible, empty-sounding echo across the valley. That hollow droning from that ... that _thing_ on the opposite ridge. Thing. Yes, _thing_ was the word for it. A senseless, twisted, horrible _thing_ ...

" _Peace_ ," said the voice again, this time nearer. So much nearer. Marcus' head snapped up, his breath freezing in his chest, but the silent shadow had already drifted over the gallery rail and up between the pews. Gliding smoothly towards him. Flight. Flight and silence. This creature was old as well. Not as old as the thing across the valley, but old enough. Centuries. An ancient vampire, the last one left from before the dawn crusades. The last survivor of more than two hundred years of war. More than any hunter could hope to handle, even without the rest of the horrors outside. Marcus stared at him, frozen. The vampire drifted to his side.

"Look at me," the creature said. Almost gently, touching down to crouch beside him, black eyes fierce and intent in a pale, aristocratic face. He didn't touch Marcus. Didn't seize him. The look on his face was arresting all by itself. "Focus on me, hunter. Nothing else. Nothing will disturb us for the moment. Nothing will enter this place save by my leave. Look at me. Steady yourself. Peace."

Laughter, cracked and giddy, bubbled up again. Marcus bit it back. His chest ached with the pressure of it, his knuckles white against the chain and leather where he'd pressed his hand to his shoulder. Keeping it in. Pressing it back. His other hand clenched as well, and blood bubbled gently between his fingers.

He didn't flinch when the vampire looked at it. Didn't so much as twitch. There didn't seem to be much point. The creature glanced back at him, at his face, and then back to his leg and the slowly growing puddle beneath it. He leaned forward, and Marcus still didn't flinch. One pale hand reached out, and paused in the air above his knee.

"You ran on this," the vampire noted softly. "Quite a way." The hand moved, traced a line in the air above his thigh. Marcus didn't _breathe_. "This was a blade. That's good. Not normally, of course, but tonight ... Yes. Good that it was only a blade. You were in the tower, weren't you." He looked up again, black eyes boring directly into Marcus' own. Staring straight into Marcus' terror. He nodded quietly to himself. "Yes. You were there. You saw them. You saw the thing they drew forth."

The noise that keened out of Marcus then was not a moan. Not that. Not far from it, maybe, but not that. He pressed his chin against his chest, pressed his arm as well. Pressed it in, pressed it all _in_. Nothing could get out. If he let it out ... All sense would flee from him if he let it out. All sanity, all care. That thing on the hill, across the valley. That vast, terrible, _incomprehensible_ \--

"Peace," the vampire whispered. Reached up, pressed a cool hand across his brow. Cold. Not cool. The fingers were icy. Marcus flinched, and startled clear. The vampire followed, and brushed fingertips across his temple. Marcus blinked at him. The vampire let his hand drift down, away from his face, to rest lightly above his wound. "Focus, hunter. Stay with me. Tell me what you saw. I will see to this. Steady yourself, and tell me what you saw."

Marcus ... breathed out, a torn, ragged exhalation. There was a blockage in his throat. Nothing physical, nothing real. Just terror. He swallowed it. The vampire bent his head over his wound. The Black King, Melchim Anastaer, and he stooped conscientiously over Marcus' lap. Hysteria threatened, even more than before, and Marcus swallowed that too.

The world was ending tonight. The world had twisted and been made wrong. There wasn't much point in panicking now.

"I followed them from below," he rasped quietly. Stiltedly, while the vampire peeled away the strips of his trousers and teased open the wound with icy fingers. Examining it. Marcus watched it. It was easier than remembering. He watched white fingers move across his torn skin, and let no pictures colour his words. "The village. There was a wolf. A captive. I followed them. There were only two, then. Not thirteen. Only two. It was foolish, but the wolf ... We'd been drinking together. I liked him. I saw them take him, and I followed them. They led me up. They led me to the tower."

The vampire glanced at him. He'd pulled a liquid from his cloak, a silver flask that gleamed brightly in the moonlight. He paused in opening it to look at Marcus.

"Brave," he said. A mild comment. Only a note. Marcus flushed.

"Stupid," he countered harshly. "I know it. No knowledge, no preparation. I know it was stupid. I followed them anyway. All the way in. To that ... To the chamber. I realised there were thirteen then. I realised my mistake. It was too late."

The vampire didn't comment this time. The liquid from his flask spilled out, washed across the ragged tear in Marcus' leg. It burned, it burned like hellfire, and Marcus' breath hitched without his leave. His lungs staggered in his chest. Then he was past it. Then he was through.

"They killed him. The wolf. He tried to fight. When he saw the circle. When he saw the blood. He tried to fight them. I ... I didn't help. I saw them first. The ... bodies. Husks. The things they'd left. I saw that first. I didn't help him. I should have."

"It would have been too late," the vampire said softly. Pressing the edges of his wound together. Drawing a sliver of steel across them. A needle. He couldn't see the thread, but the tear in his flesh wove closed. Dark eyes looked up at him. "It was too late before you ever arrived. Twelve sacrifices of thirteen. A fourteenth would have done nothing at all. The door was already all but open. All they needed was one."

Something inside him protested that. Something in Marcus bristled and stirred. And then stopped. Frozen. Ice slithered through his chest. Black eyes stared patiently back at him, and the thought slipped forward.

"You knew about them," Marcus realised, in slow and dawning horror. "You know who they are. You knew ... You _knew_."

"No," said the vampire, but not sharply. Not angrily. Softly, instead, and tiredly. "Not this. Not in time. I knew they planned something, but not this. We've had peace. For two hundred and fifty years we've had peace. They're young, they're _stupid_ , they play with notions of evil, but to throw that away ... To throw so much more than that away ..." He laughed raggedly. A hint of hysteria of his own. The Black King of Anassis, and his breath keened from icy lungs. "I came too late. I was cold, and I was tired, and I didn't pay enough attention. I came too late."

Marcus stared at him. Marcus swallowed. Too late. The Lord of Shadows, the Black King of Anassis, and he came too late. The oldest and most powerful vampire in the world, a thousand times more than any hunter could handle, and it was too late. It was still too late.

"... That thing," he said, his arm pressing silently against his chest. The memory crept forward, all unwilling, and inexorable. "The thing they called. The thing they summoned. It's going to ..."

It was going to. Something. It was going to do _something_. Something wrong, something awful. Not as he understood awful. He'd seen much, seen a lot, seen things twisted and torn and sacrificed and bled, but that _thing_ ... It had been different. Wrong. Inverted. Strange. His senses fled from it. His mind quailed away. It had been hollow. Twisted. It had gnawed at him. Not at his ... At his _soul_. Something inside him. Something he didn't know how to reach. It had eaten that. Tried to eat it. The thing on the hill was going to ...

"No," the vampire said again. Not soft, this time. Quiet, but not soft. Thin and cold and icy. "No," he said, and Marcus looked at him. On any other night, the expression that met him in those black eyes would have terrified him. On any other night, it would have struck him to his soul.

Not tonight. Tonight it did not frighten him at all.

"It will be handled," Melchim Anastaer said quietly. "I came first, to see if it could be stopped before it happened. I came first, to handle _them_. The other was planned for as well. I came too late, but that means nothing. Their creature will be dealt with as well."

Marcus stared at him. His chest ached. Something in the frozen creak of it _ached_. He didn't want to call it hope. That thing was across the valley. It ate such things. He didn't want to call it hope.

"What can plan for that?" he asked thinly. "I saw it. You're the strongest vampire in the world, and I wouldn't stand you in the face of it. What can plan for _that_?"

The Black King looked at him, and the Black King smiled. He stood up. Unfolded himself, a ripple of shadows, and held out an icy hand. Waited, patiently, until Marcus gripped it, and guided him gently to his feet. There was no weight. The vampire's hands were on his elbows. There was no weight to try the wound freshly closed in his leg.

"Come," said the vampire. His mouth twitched thinly. "Come with me. They should arrive shortly. The chapel was a good resting place, but we'll want to be higher to see this. We'll want a good view. You, particularly. It's not a thing seen often anymore. Not for centuries now."

It occurred to Marcus to protest finally. To this, to all of this. To _him_. Melchim Anastaer, Black King of Anassis, Last of the Dawn Crusaders. A thing not seen in centuries. He'd been cold, he said. Tired. He hadn't been paying attention. It had been a quarter of a millennium since the last throes of the crusades. That thing out there, it was an ancient thing, an ancient wrongness. But so was this. So was he.

If he told the truth, so was whatever waited for them outside the chapel walls.

But there was no choice, really. No point in any protest. It was too late. It had been from the moment he'd followed three figures from a tavern and up into chamber underneath a tower. Before that, probably. It was too late. It was all too late.

There were too many monsters here for even Marcus Yelantes to challenge.

He let the vampire carry him over the gallery railing, down to the chapel floor. They landed lightly, barely touching the chipped and battered tiles. Even the hands around his arms barely bruised him. The vampire laughed silently at him, a dark gleam of amusement in black eyes, but Marcus had no time to protest even that. The Black King tugged him onwards, whirled him out into the icy silence. Whirled him out into the hollow empty howling of that thing across the valley.

His breath froze in his chest. He could see it. The chapel walls had shielded him, but now he could _see_ it. The thing. The wrongness. The vastness on the other hill, the place where a tower had stood. No more. Nothing more. There were ... pieces of the mountain missing. Not ... Not broken. Twisted away. _Gone_. They were part of the thing. The thing was empty, and the thing was everything. There were pieces of the world missing. There were pieces of _him_.

He'd run. He'd cut himself, reminded himself, and he'd run. It hadn't been enough. All others in that tower had ... gone. He'd thought he escaped. He hadn't.

"Look away," the vampire said softly at his ear. Gently, enough to tug Marcus' head helplessly around. Enough to cling to, both hands gripping at the vampire's arms, one bloody, the other cold. They were floating in the air. It wasn't why he clung.

"We can't," he mumbled numbly, around a clumsy and immobile tongue. "That. We can't. Nothing ... Nothing could manage ..." 

"Peace," the Black King murmured. "Peace, hunter. It is handled. Only a little while now. Hold steady. It will be rewarded. Hold calm."

Marcus _laughed_ at him. It spilled out, finally. Hacked up out of his chest. He'd held it in. He'd held it in so long. The thing had _eaten_ him. Pieces of him. He'd tried to hold the bits in, but they spilled out now. His voice cracked. His hands curled into claws. The vampire swept him close, pulled him in against his chest. Melchim Anastaer tucked him in against his chest and brought them both to a lip of rock above the treeline. A quiet place on top of the mountain, with a clear view of the thing across the valley.

A clear view ... of something else. Below them. In the village. Something ... strange. Something _shining_.

Marcus drew a breath. A silent one, instinctive, without the broken tumble of his laughter. His chest hitched and went still. He pulled away from the vampire. Drew himself away. To the lip, to the edge of rock. The village was several miles off, only a few glimmers of light in the darkness. He shouldn't have seen it. Shouldn't have been able to. But something was shining there. He could see her.

Her. A woman. A person, a woman. A ... A broad, burly woman, with arms like a baker or a wrestling champion. She was ... he didn't even know how he could _see_ her, but he could. She was shining. She was a plain thing, sturdy, pale and faintly exasperated as she looked up the valley towards the thing on the hill. Right at it. She was shining, and she didn't flinch.

"Ludmila," the vampire said softly beside him. Coming to the edge, looking down at her along with Marcus. "Ludmila Yiternau. She was a midwife, originally. Even still, on occasion. She has a greater purpose now."

Marcus looked at him. He wasn't ... He wasn't just a vampire, now. He was a king. Visibly. You could see it when you looked at him. The Black King of Anassis, the citadel of the strait, the last surviving of the old vampire kingdoms. Not like the new ones, the squabbling territories and demesnes that had sprung up in the centuries after the crusades. Anassis was older than that. Anassis had never fallen.

And this, this creature beside him, was most of the reason why.

"What is she?" he asked slowly. Looking from the vampire king to the shining woman in the village below. "She looks like a woman. A human. What can she do?"

Melchim looked at him. Turned from her. His mouth creased into a bitter, bitter smile.

"She is a saint," he said, with black amusement, and daylight rent the night.

It was a thing. A second thing. There was a thing on the mountain, and there was a thing in the valley. A _thing_. An impossibility. A wrongness all over again. Marcus flinched. _Gibbered_. The world yawned open, the vampire's icy hand on his arm the only physical thing, and then something snapped, something righted, and the pieces inside him abruptly slopped back into place. The missing ones. The eaten ones. They flopped back into place.

When he looked up, when he managed it, the thing in the valley had a face. It had eyes, and a face. It looked at him. Right through him. Like the thing in the tower had looked at him, but not like that. The opposite of that. This thing did not unmake him. This thing made him whole.

" _Peace_ ," the Black King hissed beside him. Laughing, wide and cracked and hysterical. "Peace, Yaniriel. I was too late. Go well."

He was hunched, curved over on himself, face drawn and tight against that hideous shining stare. His arms were pressed against his chest. Marcus felt an urge to reach for him, to try and hold him up. To try and _shield_ him. But he straightened first. The vampire, Melchim Anastaer. He straightened in the face of this new and equally terrible thing, and inclined his head with all the grace of a king.

And the thing, after an endless moment, inclined its head back. One long moment, one held, stretched stare. Then it bowed its head, and turned its face to the other mountain. The other _thing_.

Marcus watched it as it marched away. The height of a mountain, higher still. Insensible. _Wrong_. A shining wrongness, to match the hollowness on the hill. His lungs felt frozen. His heart. His soul. It was too big. Inside and out. The other was a gnawing thing, but this, this was simply _big_. A light without end.

"Yaniriel," Melchim said, at last. "Yaniriel of the Last Watch. The last hope of morning. Its enemy is old and hungry, but Yaniriel cannot be worn away. Stronger things have tried. It will not be victorious. Not against this."

"What _is_ it," Marcus breathed. Barely a question, more an exhalation. A breath of stunned despair, and bottomless hope. Melchim smiled thinly.

"It is a geloi," he said, and laughed lightly as Marcus' head snapped around. His mouth twisted, bitter and amused. "Oh yes. They did not die with the crusades. Not all of them. Yaniriel is one of the last, but it is so for a reason. They tortured it. They tried to unmake it. They ate at it until there was nearly nothing left. But Yaniriel is without cease. It is the last light of the last watch. It found a way to freedom. A saint, a vessel. All the gnawing things beyond the world tried to destroy it. By the grace of one woman, a midwife who would not let go of the life she tried to birth, they did not succeed."

Marcus ... Marcus stared at him. A geloi. A _geloi_. The lords of light. The messengers of the divine. And a saint. How? _How?_

"They came to me," the Black King continued. "They came to Anassis. I don't know why. Yaniriel is not ... It is not a thing I can question, or understand. I stood across a field from its kin once. I fought saints before. Not geloi, but their saints. I had thought it might be vengeance. But no. They were weak, still. Ludmila needed help. They came to me. And I ... I was tired. As tired as they were. So I gave it."

The world yawned sideways for a moment. The geloi reached the hollow on the hill. The world went strange, stretched and thin and empty, yawning over a great chaos, a gibbering void. Marcus fell, stumbled to his knees. Icy hands caught him.

The vampire's face was thin, when he could look up again. It was pale and thin and drawn. There was something in those black eyes. Something Marcus knew. Something any hunter knew.

The last survivor of the dawn crusades. Last man standing.

Too tired and too late.

"We should go down," the vampire said sadly. Propping Marcus back on his feet. "Ludmila will need help. It is a hard thing, to let Yaniriel go, and then take it back in. She will need help. We should go down. Or I should, at least."

Marcus swallowed. His throat felt cracked and dry, like old leather. He touched a hand to the vampire's shoulder, and did not look at the wrongness on the other hill.

"I'll come," he said. "If ... If you'll have me. I'll help. I ..." He looked away. Not at the hill. At the chapel, instead. At the run-down church somewhere beneath them. "I owe it, I think. Yaniriel. I felt ... It put something back. I owe it. I'll come."

"Yes," said Melchim. Looking at him, with something that wasn't pity. "It does that. It is yawning, impossible, terrible. And it does that. I know."

Did he? Pieces that had been eaten, slotted back into place. Did the vampire know that? But maybe, Marcus thought. Maybe he did.

"Come then," Melchim said, holding out his icy hand. "We'll meet her in the village. I'll introduce you. You'll like her, I think. She can brawl like a champion and drink like a fish. You are a brave man, hunter. I suspect you will like her."

Marcus huffed out a breath. Not a laugh. His chest was back together. "I am an _idiot_ ," he said, "and I suspect she will not like me. But if you want to convince her otherwise, I won't argue."

The vampire chuckled gently. "Never fear," he said. "She is fond of idiots. Come now. Yaniriel will finish soon. Your nightmare is too new, too callow. It will not survive long. We need to go."

They did. He could feel it. Not see, since he wasn't looking, could not bear to look, but he could feel it even still. The world wobbled, strained. The world felt thin as paper, and ready to give way. But the hollowness was receding. The light, the raw presence of the geloi, was proving far too much.

It was too big. It was just too big. And one woman, burly as she may be, was meant to hold it all.

And one vampire, one tired king, to herald it.

"... Thank you," he whispered rapidly. Seizing the vampire's hand, grabbing hold of cold fingers. A king, the last king, more than any hunter could handle. Marcus grabbed him by the hand, and the Black King only looked at him. Only raised an eyebrow, mouth curling sadly and gently. "For ... You did not have to follow me. Salvage me. I am not ... This is not what hunters do. But thank you."

A crooked smile answered him. "There are not many," the vampire said, "who could survive with such pieces eaten from them. There are not many who could stand and witness such an emergence and retain enough sense to run. I have seen the geloi and their opponents on the field before. I have survived ... more than one emergence. But not intact. You did very well, hunter. As well as I have ever seen."

Marcus closed his eyes. Swallowed harshly. "Marcus," he said, a small permission. A small gratitude. "Marcus Yelantes. And I suspect it is easier, when there is someone else's strength to hold on to."

The world folded, one more time. The world crumpled and contracted and _sighed_. On the other hill, the other mountain, there was no longer a yawning hollowness. Only silence. Only light.

"Come," said Melchim Anastaer gently, pulling him close with an expression that was not pity. Never that. "We're late, Marcus Yelantes. Late as always. Let's go."

Too late, and too tired, and with nowhere else to go.

And Marcus was tired. So he went.

**Author's Note:**

> By the by, yes, 'geloi' is a corruption of 'angeloi'. Angels by another name, in another world. Heh.


End file.
